


The Manner of the Night

by insominia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Curses, Family Drama, Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insominia/pseuds/insominia
Summary: Team Free Will discover a world ending curse that can only be stopped with a willing sacrifice. In return, the sacrifice can return for one night a year to sustain them. It is never enough.Dean Winchester is falling, just like all those who came before him.But unlike them, he knows that when he is allowed to land, there will be an angel there to catch him.





	The Manner of the Night

_Falling._

_Dean Winchester is falling._

_There is no chance he will land and so it can be debated whether he is falling at all. But there is nothing below him, nothing around him and initially he flails against the nothingness as though it might avail him of something. But there is no stopping this, there is nothing to stop. He is falling though it is only the turn of his stomach that tells him this. His breath is caught in his throat, his heart pounding in his ears, the first drop of a rollercoaster, the trip on a stair, a leap from a plane he never did fly in. He cannot breathe in the emptiness, but his chest is never tight. He would be breathless if he needed breath. He has died many times and yet in those times he never considered his body. Now he is excruciatingly aware of every part of him, assuming he has a body. Assuming it is not just some fantasy that what remains of his mind clings to, something to try and make sense of this existence. Assuming he exists._

* * *

 

Their initial thought had been demons. It didn’t explain the way that the surrounding grasslands and fields had been...blighted for lack of a better word, but it might account for the cattle deaths. Along with several horses, over a dozen foxes, more birds that could be counted and that was to say nothing of the insects. Demons didn’t usually go in for 'everything that lived', but it was still their best guess.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel had piled into the Impala. Dean drove, naturally, while Sam and Castiel exchanged theories though they never really got much further than ‘probably demons.’ Until they had arrived that is. No demon in their experience had ever so successfully destroyed...well... _everything_. The trees remained standing tall, devoid of all greenery even though, Castiel pointed out, at the height of spring they shouldn’t be able to see the trunks for leaves. Flowers had withered away into nothing, the grass had yellowed and curled in on itself, as though hiding from whatever it was that had passed over it. Everything that might have held life within three miles was dead. The nearest town was forty miles away, there was that at least. The three of them had surveyed the silence, the absolute silence in a strange kind of horror before Sam cleared his throat and tentatively suggested, “...maybe a really, _really_ angry ghost?”

* * *

 

_Sometimes he can hear them. They call to him but they never beg. They call to him as though they know eventually he will call back, as though they have all the time in the world. After all, they do. But not once does Dean turn to them, or look for them, he tries to keep his mind off them and rooted in more solid things. There is nothing solid about this place. Everything is whisps and echoes. They are not solid, not real, not like the feel of a tan trench coat beneath his palms or a hand holding his arm, where once the very imprint of that hand had burned. A voice as rough and smooth as whiskey tossed in silk, the gaze of eyes so blue the sky is jealous. These things are real. These are the things Dean clings to in a place where there is nothing to cling to. Grounding him in a world without ground._

* * *

 

When in doubt, research. They fell back to the motel forty miles out, for there was nothing closer. Sam and Castiel disappeared into the library, Dean decided to ask around. Somebody must know something and if he ended up in a bar well that was just coincidence. Between them they all discovered something. It was Dean who heard all about the town that used to exist forty miles up the road, Providence or something, the man had said. It had once been one of the oldest settlements in the state, maybe even in America, but the last few generations had moved on, more interested in the attractions of the cities than the stability of the farming, even though the land had been good. At least, until the blight had come.

It was Castiel who discovered that the blight, as it had come to be known, had started just a few years ago. Inexplicably everything around what had once been Providence had died and every year the blight crept further outwards. Right now it was a curiosity, something in the soil no doubt, a contaminant that was slowly spreading. He knew from centuries of humanity that they would wait until it threatened something valuable before it would be investigated. 

It was Sam who discovered the cave and a handful of obscure legends. The cave had been there since time immemorial and when he consulted a map he discovered it to be slap bang in the centre of the devastation. It was looking less and less like demons.

* * *

 

_Time is meaningless even though it can, theoretically, be marked. There is no sun or moon to distinguish night from day. There are no seconds or minutes and hours cannot be counted. But if he had wanted to if he puts his mind to it, Dean might have counted the years, for that is something that can be done. Sam had been there the first time, and the second, and the third, and then he stops counting because it will drive him mad to know. He does not want to know when it is that Sam stops coming or when Claire takes his place before she too, stops coming. There is no need to torture himself, not when Castiel will come. Castiel will always come and so what is the point in counting?_

* * *

 

The cave was easy to find. Not just because Sam had a map but because it was the only thing standing in what might be considered a wasteland. It was surprisingly obvious, but then there was nothing around here and so why would anyone come to see it?  
It was just a cave, somehow in the middle of a field, with an obvious entrance that must have led underground seeing as there were no mountains or hills to be seen. Dean had labelled it decidedly creepy, Sam had declared it was the kind of thing you’d see in a horror movie and how ridiculous was it that they were going to go into it, even though they knew better than most what a bad idea that was. Castiel had said nothing but had bristled, his hair standing on end as though they had walked into a static charge. His frown was deeper than they had seen for a long time, but he did not say anything. Not until they went into the cave, not until they had followed it for what must have been a mile, not until they beheld what looked like an arch inscribed with symbols older than Enochian, a very obvious blue mist emanating like a curtain.

Castiel had said, “we need to leave.”

* * *

 

_It is a condition of the human mind to impose reason on madness, to find stability in chaos. Dean Winchester was human, perhaps he still is, and so his mind insists on trying to order the disorder around it. Not that it can really be called disorder, for it is the very embodiment of nothing. He has seen more substance in the veil. Sometimes he fancies he can see the cave, he can see the rocks of the archway, make out the blue glow of...of whatever it is. But, deep down he knows he cannot, there is nothing to see here, there is just him falling in the precipice, holding back the madness. He cannot feel the cave, but when his feet find home those few times he is allowed it, it is the cave in which he wakes._

* * *

 

Old magic, Castiel had called it. _Ancient_ magic. Maybe it had existed before God, maybe God had built the world around it, or maybe it had been given significance by the earliest of humans that had emerged there. Dean had told him to shut up, they needed to know what was going on not to consider the philosophy of its creation. Castiel had felt the magic in the cave and with the legends, Sam had discovered a story had emerged. An impossibly old tale, as impossibly old as the cave which had acted as a gateway between this world and the… well, that was open for discussion. It was described as the darkness, the chaos, the miasma. It was the culmination of every bad thought, every stroke of bad luck, every bad thing if such a thing were possible and it was held at bay in that spot. The people of Providence and whatever it had been called before that since the dawn of time had sent a volunteer in to hold it in check. The land had prospered as their sins passed over into the other place, leaving only purity.

Until the volunteer had wavered. Whoever passed over to the other side was spared age and decay and could return for one night a year. Just one to be sustained by life and their loved ones. But their loved ones were not so spared and eventually there would be no one to greet them on their one night. It did not take long for grief to set in, then envy at those who could live a normal life and soon they succumbed to the madness and became part of the very problem they had sought to prevent. It had been at least a hundred years since the last volunteer had entered the cave, and now the canker spilled over.

* * *

 

_Sometimes Dean wonders if the darkness knows his name or if it is a product of his imagination. Does he even have imagination still? He can hear the voices, they call to him by name but are there voices or does he just assume that a place such as this would have them? If there are voices who are they? Are they those who had gone before him or are they his own sins and failings made manifest in the madness? If they are those who had gone ahead, do they truly know his name? Can they really taunt him with his shortcomings? How can it be that they know of them? More likely it is his own mind which had been turned against him from the start. It has criticised him consistently since before he had known what criticism was. ‘A lack of self-confidence and an abundance of self-doubt’ a high-school counsellor had said once and she had been right. Has he not considered himself worthless all these years? Haven’t his efforts gone into preserving others over himself because he considered himself so little? He should surely have been corrupted by this place the very moment he stepped into it. But nothing can ever stand against the stubbornness of a Winchester._

* * *

 

They had called Rowena. After all, this was magic, this was basically a curse. All they had discovered alone was that the volunteer had to go in willingly, that they must choose of their own volition to hold back the storm that would otherwise devour everything in its path. Of course, to begin with, it had just been for good luck; a willing sacrifice to secure prosperity. But now, there was so much evil to contend with, if it leaked out it would destroy everything. Everything that lived would die. They had not wanted Rowena to confirm that there was no way around this, no way to break the curse without unleashing the chaos, they simply had to find someone to volunteer. But even that was a temporary solution, in a hundred years, maybe more, maybe less, the cycle would repeat again and this time there may be no Winchesters to combat it.

Dean had snapped, ‘no,’ at Castiel before the angel had even voiced the thought. It had taken Sam a few moments to catch on and when he did, he said ‘no’ with as much intensity as his brother.

They had time, the brothers argued. Whatever it was that was spreading out was doing so slowly, it could take years before it reached the nearest populated place. In that time they could find something else. Something that didn’t involve their closest kin stepping into a mystical gate to hold back magical bad stuff. Even the concept sounded ridiculous, they were not losing Castiel to something so ridiculous.

They argued into the night, through the night, into the next morning, past lunchtime before Castiel won. The brothers were too exhausted to argue and they had both known the angel had made up his mind the moment they realised what it would take to stop this. It made sense, after all. Castiel would not age anyway, he had watched humanity for eons before the Winchesters had arrived, he would go on for eons after they had left. Besides, he would have one night a year, and that year would pass differently for he who had been there at the very first dawn.

Sam had accepted it begrudgingly.

Dean had said nothing.

* * *

 

_Often, he wonders what it is that he can see. It had been blue on the other side, but to call it blue now would suggest it has colour, hue when here there is nothing of the sort. It is an emptiness of nothing, with an absence of anything to focus on, yet at the same time, there seems to be too much. As though his eyes are being forced open to observe an assault of images he can never distinguish. It is too little and too much, it is nothing and it is everything. It might be blue, and sometimes he assures himself that it is. The blue reminds him of Castiel, and eventually, the night will come and he will understand blue as it is meant to be understood._

* * *

 

They walked him to the cave, though Sam said at every step that they could wait. They could research, they had time. Castiel disagreed. They did not know how quickly the darkness would advance, they would not know how little time they had until it was gone and the Winchesters knew better than most how fragile life was. What if they were to be lost before they had found the answer and the world would suffer accordingly. For that was what Rowena and the lore agreed on, if it could not be stopped, it would simply spread, devouring everything until there was nothing.

Dean said nothing.

In the cavern was the curtain, if it could be called that. It looked like smoke, it looked like air, it was blue. It flowed in stillness from the rocky archway and Castiel did not flinch from it. He said his goodbyes to Sam, Sam begged Dean to say goodbye. To say something. But Dean just scoffed, what did they want him to say? Castiel had said goodbye and Dean wanted to meet his eye, really he did. But he couldn’t.

Castiel had sighed and said the words they had found in one of the library books, etched into a rendering of a woodcut. The curtain seemed to glow, it seemed to part, as though welcoming its latest offering. Castiel had looked back at Dean one last time before he stepped forward. He had been looking forward as he moved, which is why it caught him by surprise. All Castiel knew was the weight that knocked him to the ground, the shadow that passed ahead of him, a flash and Sam screams echoing around them.

“ _Dean_!”

* * *

 

_One day. One day a year to walk again. To see the sunrise, the sunset, the stars appear and the moon ascend. To breathe the air, the actual air and feel the grass underfoot. To break bread with family, to hold the new babes, to see the new fields. These are the things that sustained the night and to some extent, they are what sustains Dean. In lieu of bread, there are cheeseburgers, in lieu of new babes, there is Sam and the beard that Dean swears suits him, in lieu of fields there are new Star Wars films. Such things hold no meaning in the void, and yet, they are enough. And of course, there is always Castiel. After Sam and then Claire, even Rowena had visited once or twice but there is always Castiel. Dean holds to this._

* * *

 

Dean Winchester reappeared exactly one year to the day that he had disappeared. He stepped from the archway as though he had just stepped into it. The first thing to greet him was his brother’s fist. A year had done little to temper Sam’s anger and that blow had been a long time coming. That first night was spent shouting. Sam shouted at Dean. Dean shouted at Sam. Castiel had shouted at both of them, telling them to stow their crap for the one night a year Dean could be there. Sam had argued that because it was the one night a year it was the only time he could get it out of his system. And so he had gone to town for twenty-four hours, while Dean had eaten the cheeseburger Cas had picked up from a diner en route and accepted everything his brother said. It was done now, what else could he do? One night was not enough for Sam to say what he needed when they came back the following year Dean stepped into another punch, but by the end of that night, they were talking as brothers again, even if Sam was still angry.

Dean had known that Sam would not be around forever and one day he stepped down from the arch into Castiel’s arms, and only Castiel’s. That night had been the hardest one yet, but somehow it had been ok. It had been a long time coming and time, in the void, was so very long after all. Before he had returned to his post, Dean had apologised to Castiel and offhand admitted that it might take an eternity for him to admit the feelings they had both known lingered not far beneath the surface, the feelings that had seen Dean push the angel out of the way of the gate and take his place. Castiel had shrugged, he had waited this long and besides, he had smirked, maybe now in some weird way they had an eternity.

* * *

 

_Sometimes it is so much he could scream. But there is no sound so is he really screaming? Somehow that is worse. The nothingness is oppressive, the loss of himself is the worst but has he lost himself if he is still Dean? He still feels like Dean. He still loves like Dean._  
_He had described it to his brother as some "weird-ass Wonderland shit", which in hindsight had done little to assuage the overwhelming assault on his senses that the void provides. It has at least gone some way to describing how nothing can be so much._

* * *

 

Even while Sam was still around, Castiel had moved from the bunker. He built a house near the cave, actually built it himself. He wanted somewhere for Dean to live on the nights when he did live. That was probably why it looked like the ‘ _Dean-cave_ ’ from the bunker. Dean had loved it, and it was in this house, watching something on the oversized television drinking beer and eating popcorn that Dean had realised how much Cas had done for him. How much Cas was prepared to do for him and how much Dean had done in return. He’d meant to say thank you, what he actually said was ‘ _I love you._ ’ For some reason, Cas had found this hilarious, but he had kissed him nonetheless. Just another way in which Cas made the one night worth it.

* * *

 

_Dean Winchester is falling._

_His breath, assuming he even needs breath is caught in his throat. His heart is pounding in his ears. Everything is pain and yet nothing hurts. He understands why those who came before him could be corrupted, sometimes he wonders if he will falter too. This place is impossible and the respite is so few and far between sometimes, it feels like it cannot be enough. But Dean knows it will be, it has to be. Sometimes he feels like he could drown in these thoughts, that he will turn to the unseen behind him, the force he does not let himself look at and throw himself at it. But then the floor is solid beneath him and he is breathing air again. It takes him a moment to adjust, it always does even though the transition is relatively seamless._

_One minute he is not, the next he is._

_He finds himself in the cave, greeted as ever by the smell of damp rock and he sucks it down as though it had been drowning not a moment before. And then, of course, there is the hand on his shoulder, firm yet gentle as it has always been. Dean leans into the embrace before he acknowledges even doing so, and then there is another scent. The mustiness of the trench coat and something else. Something fresh and crisp and clean. The air after a rainstorm. The first breath of the stars. An angel. There is a kiss, a gentle press of lips, softer than he remembers and he makes a note that more kisses are needed, for the sake of his memory. And then there is blue. Bluer than the skies or the seas, bluer than anything has any right to be, followed by the voice. Whiskey wrapped in silk, the rough and the smooth._

_“Hello, Dean.”_

 

 


End file.
